Rudolf Friedrich Alfred Clebsch (19 January 1833 – 7 November 1872) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to algebraic geometry and invariant theory. He attended the University of Königsberg and was habilitated at Berlin. He subsequently taught in Berlin and Karlsruhe. His collaboration with Paul Gordan in Giessen led to the introduction of Clebsch–Gordan coefficients for spherical harmonics, which are now widely used in quantum mechanics.
Alfred Clebsch | |
|---|---|
 Rudolf Friedrich Alfred Clebsch | |
| Born | 19 January 1833 |
| Died | 7 November 1872 (aged 39) |
| Nationality | Prussian |
| Alma mater | University of Königsberg |
| Known for | Clebsch graph Clebsch representation Clebsch surface Clebsch–Gordan coefficients Legendre–Clebsch condition |
| Awards | Prix Poncelet (1868)[1] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Thesis | De motu ellipsoidis in fluido incompressibili viribus quibuslibet impulsi |
| Doctoral advisor | Franz Ernst Neumann |
| Doctoral students | Gottlob Frege Alexander von Brill |
Together with Carl Neumann at Göttingen, he founded the mathematical research journal Mathematische Annalen in 1868.
In 1883, Saint-Venant translated Clebsch's work on elasticity into French and published it as Théorie de l'élasticité des Corps Solides.
Books by A. Clebsch
edit- Vorlesungen über Geometrie (Teubner, Leipzig, 1876-1891) edited by Ferdinand Lindemann.
- Théorie der binären algebraischen Formen (Teubner, 1872)
- Theorie der Abelschen Functionen with P. Gordan (B. G. Teubner, 1866)
- Theorie der Elasticität fester Körper (B. G. Teubner, 1862)